The Economics of the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a Tor hidden service and digital, anonymous marketplace where users could buy all sorts of illicit goods: drugs, paraphernalia, fake IDs, etc., even weapons for a short time. All transactions were done in Bitcoin and the website even had “tumblers” to obfuscate the lineage of Bitcoin inputs and outputs to better anonymize users. Its fearless leader, known as the Dread Pirate Roberts, was a dedicated and principled Austro-libertarian and anarcho-capitalist, and he saw the website as a grand experiment in establishing peaceful, unregulated markets through the Internet to escape government intervention.

On October 2nd, the government intervened. Ross Williams Ulbricht, the Austin native and alleged identity of the Dread Pirate Roberts, was arrested in San Franscisco, and the FBI seized the website as well as the bitcoins stored on the website.

Join the Mises Circle to look at the economics of the Silk Road, its shutdown, and the future of digital, anonymous marketplaces.